Overflowing Joy

At that very moment, Jesus overflowed with joy from the Holy Spirit and said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness.”

                                                                                                    Luke 10:21

I would have loved to see Jesus overflow with joy. I don’t recall having read such a description of Jesus elsewhere, but I can imagine it. Can you? 

This verse is part of the story of the seventy-two who have been sent out and have now returned to share their experiences. Imagine the excitement they brought, and Jesus, in the thick of their excitement, exclaiming with joy to God! It is a glimpse, surely, of what heaven must be, and the overflowing joy that is part and parcel of eternal life. 

I’ve had those moments of overflowing joy, and I’m sure you’ve had them too. Last weekend, I was in the North Georgia mountains, and one morning, as I sat outside in the crisp, cool air, I saw the sun strike the mountain in front of me. It brought tears to my eyes, a moment of overflowing joy. We experience such moments, and most of them take place in events of everyday life. Something clicks, and we are present in a way that is hard to describe. If we do try to describe it, we cannot adequately convey why it is such a moment for us.

Maybe such moments are when we actually experience the world with childlike wonder. Jesus speaks of things being hidden from the wise and intelligent and shown instead to babies. To overflow with joy requires that we lay aside being “reasonable” and embrace imaginative delight, that we receive God’s kingdom, which is everywhere, all around us, as a child.

Are you open to experiencing overflowing joy? Are you willing to let go of stiff, stuffy adulting to see the ordinary as extraordinary, with the eyes of a child?

Hostility vs Joy

While Jesus predicts that people will die of fear “as they await what menaces the world” (Luke 21:26), he says to his followers: “Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to stand with confidence before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:36). After I gazed for a long time at [Andrei] Rublev’s Trinity [icon] these words spoke to me with new power, “Praying at all times” has come to mean “dwelling in the house of God all the days of our lives.” “Surviving all that is going to happen” now tells me that I no longer need to be victim of the fear, hatred, and violence that rule the world. “Standing with confidence before the Son of Man” no longer just refers to the end of time, but opens for me the possibility of living confidently, that is, with trust (the literal meaning of con-fide) in the midst of hostility and violence.     –Henri Nouwen

There is so much hostility and violence on display in the world. War, violent crime, oppression against groups of people—these may be the first things that come to mind when we think of hostility and violence. Social media though, increasingly reveals to me that hostility and violence are not just “out there” in other countries, in certain neighborhoods, and perpetrated by dictators, gang members or others that might fit our definition of “likely suspects.”

The perpetrators of violence I am most familiar with are people of comfortable means, church goers, business leaders—the folks we work with, worship with, play tennis with, travel with. Hostility, violence and hatred show up in what is posted or shared on Facebook and Twitter. What such postings reveal to me is that many who would claim to be Christian are not interested in living with confidence in the midst of hostility but would rather participate in promoting hatred, hostility and violence.

I’ve been thinking about St. Francis of Assisi, whose feast day is October 4. He saw God’s light in creation. He found joy in what others bemoaned as paltry. He reached out in love to those who practiced a different religion than his. He let go of the values and culture of his family and joyfully embraced a life outside the mainstream, eschewing status and wealth and instead embracing poverty and simplicity.

He could do this because he had nothing to protect or defend. He was dwelling in the house of God while living in a world of hostility and violence. He trusted God to be God for him. He lived the gospel of Jesus, and his rootedness in God’s love meant he poured love out wherever he went.

In the midst of a society that is more interested in bringing a kingdom of hostility and violence than in bringing the kingdom of God I want to emulate his joy, his vision, his way of dwelling in the house of God. We need the spirit and theology of St. Francis.

All Things

My Father has handed all things over to me. No one knows the Son except the Father. And nobody knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wants to reveal him.  –Matthew 11:27

All things. Jesus is one with God, knowing and known perfectly, one by the other. All knowledge, all power, all love, all humility, all compassion, all generosity—all that is in God is in Jesus, and Jesus’ life and work reveal to us a glimpse of the Father’s heart, which is still beyond our comprehending.

To have been given this glimpse, which seems to us in our smallness so vast and deep a knowing, is such a gift, such a grace. Our whole lives—all we learn and know of God—is still only a glimpse of the Creator. No matter how much we know, our knowing is but a grain of sand compared to what Jesus knew of the Father.

Do you ever imagine what God knows of God’s whole creation? The thoughts of the hawk I saw soaring yesterday, the sound of sap moving in a tree’s body, the timing of my next breath, the location of every worm pushing through soil—God knows all this. And God loves each with a love I cannot fathom, but want to emulate.

An Advent Prayer

“. . . you’ve hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have shown them to babies. Indeed, Father, this brings you happiness.”   Matthew 11:25-26

Loving God, don’t let me be so wise,

so intelligent, so busy, so practical, that I miss

the miracle before me. Do not let my heart grow numb,

unable to muster awe and wonder and love.

Keep me from the cynics, the complainers,

the rushing-arounders who have no time and

no use for a tree full of joy,

gifts given in love, or the sparkle in a child’s eye.

May I find a silent night, or several,

in which to sit with The Story,

in which to enter it afresh.

Light the Christ candle in my heart today and throughout

this season, that I may be aglow with your love

and presence. May my heart

be a welcoming womb for your Great Gift to us.

O come Emmanuel. Amen.

Like You

We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is.

                                                                                                         1 John 3:2b

You, whom I so love,

   I want to be like you.

   I want to do what you do,

   love what you love,

   give like you give.

Like a child watches a parent

to copy what the parent does,

I want to copy you, but I am clunky,

your shoes too big for me,

your clothes hang loose on me,

your hat covers my eyes.

I smell your smells in these clothes.

I imagine myself filling them.

I see your smile. I see

your love for me, for my childlike

effort to follow you as faithfully

as I know how. Let me grow and know

you more deeply. Help me become

more like you.

Miracles

The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.         Joshua 5:12

During all the time the Israelites were in the wilderness, God fed them. Though they disobeyed, grumbled, made a golden calf and generally were an unpleasant and distrustful lot, God fed them.

I wonder if the miracle is not that God made manna fall from the sky for their daily food, but that God persisted in faithfulness to them when they weren’t likable travelers, which was most of the time!

When they needed food, God rained it down on them. And when they arrived in a place where manna was no longer needed, it stopped. The simple verse above reminds me that God pays attention to us, knows our needs, and cares for us in the way that is most beneficial to us. It may not be the way we think it should happen. It may not be as unusual as manna; it may be produce that grows in the usual way. But are crops that grow from the soil any less miraculous than manna dropping from the sky?

A favorite quote of mine is one I read in The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne. Claiborne is actually relating a response he received from one of his college Bible teachers when he asked the instructor if he still believed in miracles. The instructor said “we have insulated ourselves from miracles. We no longer live with such reckless faith that we need them. There is rarely room for the transcendent in our lives. If we get sick, we go to a doctor. If we need food, we go to a store and buy it. We have eliminated the need for miracles. If we had enough faith to depend on God like the lilies and the sparrows do, we would see miracles. For is it not a miracle that the birds find enough worms each day?”

If we really stop to think about it, what we may think of as ordinary is miraculous. Today I enjoyed a beautiful late winter day. It was a good day to be in the car, and as I sat at a traffic signal, I was mesmerized by the clouds drifting across the sky. What could be more beautiful? How do they do that?

And yesterday, I was thinking about a recent joyous occasion in my life, and the web of events that led to this occasion. Some didn’t even involve me. Some occurred over five years ago. Some seemed so insignificant at the time they occurred that I would not have given them a second thought had I not been reflecting on this joyous occasion. Yet had any single one of these events not happened, I might not have had this significant occasion to celebrate. The web of life is intricate, interconnected and miraculous!

To see the world with eyes of wonder, to make room for the transcendent, the miraculous, is to make all of life sacramental—the apple, the cloud, the soil, the meal shared with a friend. There is no place where God is not.

Self-Reliance

I wonder if our primary way of betraying God is by our desire to be self-reliant. The speed at which most of us live leaves no room for reliance on God, nor are we inclined to wait for God’s guidance or provision. At most, we seek God’s rubber stamp of approval for our decisions.

The concept of Sabbath is not one we embrace willingly; at least that has been my experience. Whether discussing the Jubilee year or just one day a week, groups with whom I’ve met are not ambivalent about the notion of taking time off to let God be God for us. I’ve had both millennials and retirees reject the discipline of Sabbath. Sabbath as a spiritual discipline strikes a blow to the ego, teaching us that we are not self-reliant, that God is not subject to our plans, that, as Brother Lawrence said, we cannot go faster than grace.

Self-reliance and grace live in opposition to each other, which is why embracing self- reliance is a denial of God’s power and grace. It’s not an easy word for us to hear, and yet we shudder at the notion of dependence on God’s grace.

Think otherwise? Then ask yourself how willing you are to be seen as irrelevant, unproductive, or powerless by others. Is your worth so rooted in Christ’s love that you can live with these labels in order to be totally dependent on God’s grace and provision?

Both Judas and Peter demonstrated the sin of self-reliance. Judas wanted power and betrayed Jesus. Peter wanted relevance and wouldn’t accept Jesus’ prediction of his death (Matthew 16:22-23).

How do we betray Jesus by our self-reliance? 

Saturday at the Ball Field

Although Lent is over, I've been out of town on retreat so I thought I'd share another of my Lent poems this week, one that speaks of living in the present moment.

The day after the first

day of spring

I am at the baseball fields

where two young friends

are playing.

A beautiful day and memories,

laughter and folding chairs,

snacks and a toddler

keep me fully in the present moment.

No worries,

no to-do list.

What if every day could be lived

like this one?

Being A Beginner

Recently I began practicing yoga. Mostly I’ve been attending beginner classes. It’s been fun to be a beginner, to be new to something and thus to not be expected to have some level of proficiency. We are always beginners as children, but sometimes as adults we get so used to mastery that we are uncomfortable with the vulnerability and mystery of being a beginner.

We may shun the label “beginner” as if it denotes a lower status than “experienced.” But that’s our pride talking, not our spirit. Our ego doesn’t like to be awkward, vulnerable or uninformed. Yet as children we were all of these much of the time. If we are unwilling to be a beginner, we close ourselves off from learning. We make no space for curiosity and creativity. We cannot grow. Our efforts to avoid being labeled a beginner actually cause us to be awkward, vulnerable and uniformed.

There is great freedom and excitement in being a beginner. Freedom, because I don’t have expectations to meet. If I don’t know a yoga pose, if I cannot hold my balance or am not as flexible as another, so what? I’m a beginner. I have to learn. I have to work and practice so I can move forward. The excitement of being a beginner results from the wide open horizon for learning that beginning invites me into. I enjoy the remembrance of what it was like to be a child, to see possibilities with breathless, wide-eyed enthusiasm, to plunge into a sport or hobby with no agenda but fun.

As I’ve thought about the delight in being a beginner, I recall an incident from a few weeks ago. I went to lunch with a friend, to a restaurant I had not visited previously. I had the opportunity to try something new, but chose instead to eat something familiar. Looking back, I realized I missed a chance to be a beginner, to explore something new, to be vulnerable and to let another teach me. I had an occasion to be curious and childlike, and let it pass me by. My loss!

Although I hope to gain some yoga experience, I want to remember the excitement I’ve experienced in being a beginner. I look forward to finding something else to begin. And next time I have the chance to try a new food, I’ll approach it joyfully.